This research explored the challenge of how students might successfully perform real laboratory experiments over the Internet without being in a laboratory. Numerous distance learning environments were surveyed, and the effectiveness and disadvantages of laboratory facilities currently available over the Internet were assessed. Full and part-time…

Attempts to identify skills shown when able students work on open investigations. Findings indicate that these students use knowledge, carry out preliminary work, decide on objectives, are flexible, use a range of techniques, attempt to quantify, seek information from different sources, use time efficiently, report work, show critical appraisal of…

In investigative work, pupils encounter relatively open-ended tasks for which they have to devise their own solutions. Historically, the development of investigative work in the United Kingdom has come to the point where many schools are adopting it with some enthusiasm and with a degree of success. Progression has been largely defined by the…

This paper draws on earlier work on ideas that underpin the collection and use of evidence in science in schools. It establishes that different types of practical work share the same procedural underpinnings. It then takes the work of Toulmin on argumentation to suggest that the idea of the "public claim" can be used to forge a link…

Presents nine physics notes for British secondary school teachers. Some of these notes are: (1) speed of sound in a steel rod; (2) physics extracts-part four (1978); and (3) a graphical approach to acceleration. (HM)

Describes an applied physics course which has been taught at Liverpool Polytechnic in the United Kingdom. Objectives, experimental work and assessment of the course are included. (HM)

Describes the history of the random experiment in the Home Office in the United Kingdom and demonstrates that research and the conduct of research is not an altogether rational process and that fashion, personality, and politics play a role in research policy and methodology choice. (SLD)

Presents experiments, demonstration, activities and ideas relating to various fields of physics to be used in physics courses in secondary schools. The use of a programable pocket calculator in A-level physics courses is among the activities described. (HM)

Psychology departments in U.S., Canadian, English, and Irish universities were asked to describe their practices concerning student participation as subjects in experiments. Experimental participation as a requirement, with other options to fulfill that requirement, has become the most popular form of subject pool. The educational value is…

Presents the following three biology notes: (1) a low cost variable temperature incubator; (2) projects on the ecology of freshwater mussels (Unionidae); and (3) studies on urease. (HM)

Presents 12 chemistry notes for British secondary school teachers. Some of these notes are: (1) a simple device for testing pH-meters; (2) portable fume cupboard safety screen; and (3) Mass spectroscopy-analysis of a mass peak. (HM)

Presents six middle school science notes for British science teachers. Some of these notes are: (1) fingerprints; (2) the floating magnet; and (3) the production of electricity using a lemon. (HM)

Presents demonstrations, using microprocessors, to show the slow change in relative phase of two sine waves feeding the inputs of an oscilloscope and Fourier synthesis. (SK)

Two experiments assessed masked priming for words presented to the left and right visual fields in a lexical decision task. In both Experiments, the same magnitude and pattern of priming was obtained for visually similar ("kiss"-"KISS") and dissimilar ("read"-"READ") prime-target pairs. These findings…

Discusses teaching ecology in high schools in terms of kinds of problems suitable for study and management of field and laboratory activities. (EB)